Postman Always Rings Twice Analysis

James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) was both successful and controversial. Containing passages of violence and sex not commonplace at the time of its release, the crime story was banned in the city of Boston. Modern Library named the book one of the best one hundred novels. The novel has been produced for the screen seven times, the best-known version being a 1946 film noir.

Frank Chambers, the first person narrator of the book, is a young man who is a drifter in California. He stops at a diner where he obtains a job. The diner is owned by Cora, a beautiful young woman, and with her husband, Nick Papadakis. Nick, referred to as “the Greek,” is much older than Cora. Frank finds himself attracted to Cora as soon as he meets her, and she returns the feelings. Very quickly, they enter a passionate affair, which includes sadomasochistic overtones. Early on, when they hug, Cora tells Frank to bite her lip. He obliges, drawing

Nowhere in the text is there a reference to a postman. One interpretation was that the author was inspired by an actual event in 1927 in which Ruth Snyder and her lover plotted to kill her husband. Cain later used the Snyder case as the basis for Double Indemnity which was published in 1943. Snyder, in the true case, wanted to prevent her husband from discovering the changes she made in his life insurance policy by having the postman agree to ring the bell twice when delivering the notices of the policy payments. Other interpretations of Cain’s title suggested that it referred to the Victorian era when the postman would knock once to indicate that post, or mail, was delivered but needed no further action. If there was something that had to be personally delivered, the postman would knock twice. Since this generally indicated a telegram, which commonly contained bad news, ringing twice was a sign of